Too Late
by xxxRavensClawxxx
Summary: Rainbow Dash was a fast pegasus, faster than anypony out there. But there was a day where she wasn't fast enough. A day where she was too late.


**This is my sad story of the month of January. I call it "Too Late." It's based on the**

**YouTube video "-Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo- Too Late," which in turn is based**

**on a comic on DeviantART. No explanation in this intro. I recommend watching the**

**video after reading this, just search "MLP Too Late" on YouTube. I cried pretty**

**hard at that, which is good. If you don't cry, you don't have emotion, and if you**

**don't have emotion, you have no humanity, therefore, crying means you're human**

**still. I recommend listening to "Mice on Venus" by C418 or the really famous**

"**Hallelujah" by some guy while reading this. Enjoy.**

**P.S. I made up parts of Dash's past, like her father and sister, and her mother's**

**death was taken from a comic I saw on YouTube. I know nothing of her real**

**parents, or if she even had a sister.**

**Too Late**

**By xxxRavensClawxxx**

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Not even the wisest

unicorn can see what happens, and none can stop it from happening. Not even the fastest

flier in Equestria.

This and much more was going through a young mare's head as she slowly

walked to the old clubhouse of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Her rainbow mane and tail

gleamed in the fading sunlight as it set beyond the horizon.

She thought of the young filly she was going to see, the only one she had cared

for since her mother had been killed by the storm in the sky so many years before. And

she had been too late to save them both.

"Hey Rainbow Dash!" A voice called from below. Rainbow Dash rolled over on

her cloud to see an orange pegasus filly with a purple mane looking up hopefully.

"What is it, Scoots?" she called down.

"I was wondering if we could go to the mountain path and play for a bit.

Applejack and Rarity said I can't play there without anypony else with me, and they're in

Manehattan visiting Babs right now. Please?"

The cyan pegasus looked across the sky she floated in to the setting sun.

"I don't know, kiddo. It'll be dark soon…"

"It'll be light still for LOADS of time. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplea seplease?"

She said persuasively. Rainbow Dash sighed and gave in.

"Alright, but only for a few minutes."

The pegasus approached an object at the base of the old oak. It was silhouetted by

the sunset. A wooden cross in the ground, donned with a tattered red cape and a purple

helmet. Too late.

"Hey Scoot, be careful here. These rocks are a bit slippery." Dash called from her

cloud above the filly. Scootaloo nodded from her scooter and they continued, finally

reaching the clearing on the mountain path. Dash looked down.

"Alright squirt, I need to catch some of my 40 winks. Be careful, ya' hear?" The

filly nodded, and the young mare made her cloud softer before settling in and dozing off.

The filly looked around for something to do, and saw a pile of rocks on a ledge.

"Maybe I'll get my Cutie Mark in climbing." she said out load as she trekked up

to the new activity.

Dash rubbed her hoof on the helmet, and nuzzled the silky cape that Sweetie Belle

had made from Rarity's material. She burned that feeling into her mind so that she would

never forget the filly. She didn't need to, though. Scootaloo's memory was already

burned in her heart.

"Rainbow Dash, help!" a shriek broke Rainbow Dash out of her sleep, and she

looked about wildly until she saw Scootaloo hanging from a ledge above her. Rocks

tumbled from her hooves as she struggled to get onto the ledge.

She flew up to the cliff that jutted out of the mountainside, realizing that if the

filly slipped off, the only thing to catch her would be the ground so far below. Landing,

she slowly crept towards the only pony she still cared about.

"Don't move, kid!" she hissed, almost within reach of her. The rocks Scootie

hung onto slipped again, sending the younger pegasus farther off the ledge.

"I'm slipping! I can't hold on!" Scoot screamed as she slipped off. The cyan

pegasus cried out as she leapt forward and grabbed empty air. Scootaloo fell faster and

faster to the ground far below.

In the most important race she ever had been in, Dash flew as fast as she could

against the hardest opponent yet: time itself.

Time ticked on, but Dash didn't move from the grave. She had failed. Memories

flooded back from the week before, and she cringed as she heard a word in her mind,

spoken over and over and over.

Failure.

"Almost there!" Dash called to the falling filly. Tears welled in Scootaloo's eyes

as she looked at the big sister figure in her life. The ground grew nearer with each

passing second, and the filly could see the outcome of this all.

"No, you won't. I just want you to know, I loved yo-" The words were knocked

from her as she hit the ground with a sickening thud. And Rainbow Dash saw it all,

barely pulling up in time to avoid a similar fate. She wouldn't have cared if she had. And

as she recovered from the crash she did take, she wailed her pain into the air.

"SCOOTALOO!"

Rainbow Dash knelt by the small grave. She would have broken into tears long

ago, but what if Scootaloo was watching? She knew the cyan pegasus as a strong, willful

pony, one who was beyond sorrow. She was supposed to be tough.

Supposed to be tough, but in reality, she was only one thing.

Too late.

Dash sprinted over to the body of the filly. She rolled her over, listening for a

heartbeat, a pulse, something! Then Scootaloo coughed.

"Scoots! It's okay, kid, we'll get you to the hospital, you'll be okay! Just don't

strain yourself. It'll be okay…"

"No, it won't." the younger pegasus interrupted in a weak voice. She breathed in

the fresh air of the twilight, feebly patting the ground next to her. Rainbow Dash laid

down, trying to hold onto the hope that Scootaloo would be okay.

"You know, this is a beautiful place to die." The older mare looked around and

noticed, suddenly, the beauty of the place around her. The air was cool compared to the

summer heat of the day, and the trees and flowers were in full bloom. Birds sang to each

other as they settled into their nests to sleep, and she agreed.

"Yes it is. But you can't die! Not yet."

"I know," Scootaloo chuckled, coughing in the middle of it. "I can't fly, let alone

have my Cutie Mark. I'm dying a failure." She gasped for breath at the end of the

sentence. Dash shook her head vigorously in defiance.

"No, Scootie. You're a winner, and I couldn't be a prouder older sister. I love

you."

"I love you too… Dashie." She was suddenly attacked by a fit of coughing, and

despite Dash's efforts to stop it, she drew her last breath and embraced the approaching

darkness.

Anyone seeing the scene underneath the clubhouse in the old oak tree, they would

be hit by a wave of sorrow without even knowing who died and who was at the grave

now. They would see a grieving mare who cried for

Rainbow Dash had brought Scootaloo to the hospital. Brought it in hopes that the

fall had only badly hurt her. But in the end, that's all they were: hopes. The mare at the

desk saw the cracked and bloody body of the orange pegasus and immediately pointed

Dash in the direction of the Emergency Room, where the doctors took the filly.

The next morning, all Rainbow Dash's friends and the Cutie Mark Crusaders

joined their sobbing friend. Nopony cared that this once fearless pegasus had been

brought to tears, because they felt the same way. They just cried together.

Applejack and Apple Bloom cried together. Same with Rarity and Sweetie Belle.

Twilight Sparkle and Spike cried too, and Fluttershy was probably in shock, for she only

let silent tears trickle down her cheeks. Even Pinkie Pie wasn't letting forth a waterfall of

tears like she usually did, for those were tears of joy. Now she just sat and cried, letting

salty tears drip onto the floor. And Rainbow Dash cried the most of all of them.

The doctor came in, and he looked grim. Even he looked like he had cried a little.

"I am sorry to say this… she didn't have a chance of being saved. She died

quickly, by the looks of her skeleton. Most likely, she broke her neck from a long fall.

Ms. Dash, please. How did this happen?"

At that moment, Dash spilled everything out, about the mountain path, about the

fall, and about how she, the fastest flier in Equestria, for the first time in her life, was the

one thing nopony thought could happen. She was too late.

The dirt was still soft around the grave. The funeral had only been four days

before, and everypony was still grieving. Dash suddenly noticed a piece of paper that had

the signature of Apple Bloom's cousin Babs on it. It said:

To Ms. Scootaloo of Ponyville,

I gladly announce the Manehattan branch of the Cutie Mark Crusaders has

officially opened. The branch is led by Babs Seed of the Apple family, but all updates

will be sent to the founders Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.

Yours truly,

Babs Seed, Head of the Manehattan Branch of the Cutie Mark Crusaders

Tears openly flowed from Rainbow Dash's eyes as she remembered the funeral.

"We gather today to mourn the death of the young filly Scootaloo, who passed

from us this past Monday of August." the preacher said to the colts and mares in the

gathering around the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse. People began walking up to the

grave, saying things to Scootaloo in case her spirit could hear them. Rainbow Dash stood

at the end of the line. Applejack and Apple Bloom were first, but only the latter spoke.

"Hi Scoots… I'm really gonna' miss ya'. I got a letter from Babs for ya', but I'll

put it on your grave so you's can read it yourself. I… I wish you hadn't… d-died…"

Apple Bloom broke into sobs that wouldn't end anytime soon, so Rarity and Sweetie

Belle went up the fresh grave. Once again, only the Crusader member spoke.

"H-hi Scootaloo. I really m-m-miss you. We found your cape and helmet.

Twilight out a spell on them so that they c-can't leave your grave ever. I'm really going

to miss you…" She broke into waves of tears, and Rarity could be heard comforting her.

"There there, Sweetie Belle. She's in a better place now."

"But nowhere is any better without her friends…" the young unicorn said. The

line continued. Scootaloo got messages from everyone, except for Pinkie, who merely

wept and put a small cupcake on her grave. Finally, it came to Rainbow Dash. She

blinked tears from her eyes as she knelt by her little sister's grave.

"Hey kiddo. You should have seen the scenery where you fell when we went to

get your cape and helmet. The leaves just turned to a light shade of orange. Just liked

your coat." She paused, trying to hold back a wave of tears. She failed, just like in

everything else that had happened recently.

"I'm so sorry! I miss you, little sis. I can't stand living without you. I was going

to invite you to live with me in my home in the sky, I even prepared a new room for you.

I'm sorry that I couldn't save you, sorry that I napped instead of watched you. I'm

sorry… I'm sorry I was too late."

She broke off, not bawling like the other ponies around her, but containing her

sobs, and containing her tears. And anypony that has cried like that knows that that's the

most painful way to cry.

"It is sad to lose somepony who has lived a full life that can be missed," the

preacher continued, "but it is sadder still to lose somepony who hasn't even begun to let

the fruits of life into his or her life." It was at these words that Rainbow Dash's last

barriers failed, and she galloped away with crystal tears trickling into her rainbow mane

and looking like stars in the twilight.

Dash now let her cries go out. But after she was done crying for Scootaloo, she

cried for her mother. For her father, who had been killed in a tornado before she was

born. For her older sister, who had left in a huff one day and never come back. She wept

for every event she hadn't cried for. Letting out all that pain she had bottled up for years

upon years. And then she noticed her surroundings.

The leaves were now a deeper shade of orange than the day before the funeral,

matching Scootaloo's coat even more. She noticed that in the deepening twilight, the

purple sky matched her mane, as if her hair had expanded and had ice speckled across it.

She cried again, but her tears were less, for her eyes were already drained. She

leaned in to whisper to Scootaloo.

"Goodbye, little sister. I was so proud of you, and I can't wait to see you again

someday. Maybe we'll fly together in the clouds of heaven."

At that moment, she expected something. Waking up to find this all as a dream.

Finding somepony like Scootaloo that she could raise on her own. Maybe even

Scootaloo's spirit coming to comfort her. But those only happened in mare's tales.

Stories with happy endings were just that - stories. And though Scootaloo would live on

in Rainbow Dash's heart, mind, and soul, a haunting memory would accompany her. The

fact that Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in Equestria, destined for greatness, able to clear

a sky in ten seconds flat, was a failure.

She was too late.

**Done. I have written my first ever short story about sadness EVER! I will write a**

**sequel to this, but that will be set in the future and everyone is older. Good? Bad?**

**Leave your feedback. Suggestions are always welcome! Until next time!**

**P.S. I will soon upload a picture of the final scene, or maybe a comic. I'll inform**

**when that happens.**


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